Miss Miller in the Moonshine
by slipshod
Summary: 2011 ACA Ficathon prompt: A fairy tale set in rural, midwest America.
1. Chapter 1

_For Billi_

Gather up the pots and the old tin can  
>and the mash, and the corn, the barley, and the bran,<br>and run like the devil from the excise man!  
>Keep the smoke from rising, Barney.<p>

-_The Hills of Connemara_, Traditional

* * *

><p>"Amos Welty certainly cuts a fine figure of a man," Eudora said over the hiss of bacon frying, "but the good Lord did not see fit to over-burden him with brains."<p>

Lenora set down the pewter jug she was carrying, placed her palm gently on the gingham tablecloth, and turned to her sister with stricken eyes.

Eudora had steeled herself for that beforehand, and so was able to carry on unaffected.

"This is largely the source of my concern. He seems, in all other aspects, to be a most satisfactory sort of fellow to make a life with. He is clean about his person. He appears to be kind-hearted."

Faced with her sister's desolate gaze at this criticism of her beloved, Eudora searched her mind in an attempt to soften the blow further. After a moment filled solely with the sound of sizzling meat, she came out with: "I am partial to his hat."

Lenora's eyes began to take on a dangerously damp sheen.

"You don't think I ought to marry Amos?" she whimpered. Lenora was sixteen, sweet-natured, gentle as a dove and Eudora loved her dearly, but she was not one to deny the state of things and the fact of the matter was that Lenora's favorite suitor spent more time and money on clothes than on seeking out gainful employment, and once his savings ran dry she would be eternally bonded with a man of excellent personal taste and no discernable means of maintaining it.

Lenora might not consider that a disconcerting prospect, but Eudora certainly did. And she could not condone it, no matter how many tears it might cause to fall upon her sister's pillow. Which, from the way things were going, looked to be in for a thorough drenching tonight.

The impending deluge was interrupted by the entrance of their cousin Buford, whose instinct for happening upon tense situations was rivalled only by his uncanny ability to sense the moment a meal began to come together in the final stages of preparation. Eudora considered his appearance inevitable. The cards were stacked against her.

He made a quick-fingered attempt at a piece of bacon and was met with an equally swift counterattack from Eudora, who wielded a ladle with a ferocity that had garnered a reputation entirely unto itself among all those who partook of the Miller Family table. But Buford Miller was a man inclined to fearlessness, and years of practice had honed his reflexes razor-fine. He dodged the strike, retreated, snagged a roll from the basket on the table, and doffed his hat to the young ladies before him. The entire production took less than thirty seconds.

"And how are my two best gals this evening?"

"Oh, Cousin Buford! Amos Welty's proposed to marry me! But Dora doesn't like him!"

"That's 'cause he's an idjit," said Cousin Buford, around a mouthful of sourdough.

Lenora's horror surpassed her physical capacity, and she collapsed utterly onto the nearest chair. "He is _not_!"

"He's-" Cousin Buford paused at the glint in Eudora's eye, reminiscent of multiple instances in the past when speaking with his mouth full had brought down her wrath upon him, and took a moment to swallow.

"Think now, Nora. How's he gonna put bread on the table if he can't find nothing better do with himself than lollygag around town spending dinero on fancy duds?"

It was always easy to pinpoint the second when Lenora was struck by a sudden inspiration. She thrust a finger toward her cousin like a musketeer declaring a duel.

"Man does not live on bread alone!"

"Man does not live on bread alone, but you can't eat satin when the crick runs dry," Cousin Buford observed, with a wink in Eudora's direction that she ignored entirely, "and them fancy shoes don't even boil down to proper leather. Good luck gnawing on that of a winter night."

Lenora burst into tears. She fled the room, leaving the remaining members of the Miller clan glaring at each other across the table. Well, more accurately, leaving Eudora to glare at Cousin Buford, whose halfhearted attempt to look sheepish which was somewhat undermined by his inability to take his eyes off the bacon she was transporting from the pan to the table.

Buford Miller had sandy blond hair, a crooked smile, and eyes like the prairie sky. His bachelorhood was therefore a great source of befuddlement among the young ladies of the town of Hickok Hill. Eudora suspected that it would do much in the way of clearing up their confusion if they ever spoke to him for more than a span of five minutes, or happened upon him in the midst of a meal.

She set the bacon at the far end of the table, placed herself strategically in his path, and leveled a glare powerful enough to distract his attention from his stomach long enough to elicit a disarming grin.

"Aw, don't be sore, Eudora. You don't like that namby-pamby Welty kid any more n' I do."

Eudora's loyalty to her sister compelled her to give a more diplomatic response than she might have otherwise.

"I am partial to his hat."

"Man does have a particular fine taste in hats," said Cousin Buford, helping himself to another roll. "I will give him that."

With that gracious acknowledgment, Cousin Buford thumped himself down into the chair his cousin had recently abandoned and began to fiddle absently with the brim of his own hat, which was admittedly far more battered and worn than anything ever to grace the careful curls of Amos Welty's brow. But then, Cousin Buford had neither the time nor inclination to devote much attention to the care and keeping of his headwear.

"Besides, it ain't like she can't find a better one. She's got a whole bushel of 'em. When you gonna get yourself a fella, Eudie?"

Eudora narrowed her eyes slightly. Cousin Buford, for all his general aptitude, had never fully comprehended the contentiousness that abbreviation inspired in her. As that knowledge would only encourage him further, she aimed to keep it that way.

"I am considering the first occasion upon which you chew with your mouth closed, of your own accord, to be a sound standard of measurement."

Cousin Buford grinned at her, and continued unhindered.

"You got a whole bushel of 'em too, poor afflicted souls."

Eudora turned to face him with the ladle in her left hand, loose and ready. "I would reconsider the implications of that statement, if I were you."

Cousin Buford took a step backward and raised his hands to shoulder height.

"Don't get your back up, I'm just sayin' it ain't like you don't have options. Pete Barnes has been making a mash for you since y'all were in school together. Joel Pickett's been out here twice trying to get you to go to the dance with him. I ain't claiming to be any kind of knowledgeable, but a man willing to ride fourteen miles in the heat of the sun to ask for a dance might be a man worth the consideration."

"I am not one to decide a thing in haste," said Eudora; for she was not.

Cousin Buford snorted. "It ain't like you ain't had time to mull it over. Shoot, it's been what, five, six months now since-"

"Speaking of mulling things over," said Eudora, "how is Miss McClinton getting on these days?"

Cousin Buford had been unsuccessfully attempting to court Bluebell McClinton for nigh on two years, though neither he nor anyone else could seem to articulate precisely why.

"Fair to middlin'," he said, and scuffed a boot against a chair leg. "I just don't want you to end up an old maid out here all by your lonesome, is all."

"I would thank you to turn your consideration elsewhere," Eudora said dryly. Though she supposed she could understand the source of his concern, it was highly unlikely that Uncle Hiram would take a notion to turn the property over to her, and so if she did end up all by her lonesome it would not be out here on the open prairie, seven miles from the nearest town. And furthermore it was just as unlikely that either of her cousins, upon inheriting the cabin, would turn her out so if she was fated to spend her days out here on the open prairie it would not be quite so lonesome as Cousin Buford feared.

He simply was not looking at the situation in the proper light. Eudora set the potatoes down by the bacon and fixed her cousin with a preemptive scowl. "Where are the others?"

"Out in the shed. Want me to fetch 'em?"

"If you would."

Cousin Buford set a course for the shed, a ramshackle structure behind the barn that had once been intended for a mythologically cantankerous mule. In the ten years since Eudora and her sister had come to live with their uncle the shed had been in complete disuse. And then last summer, under a great deal of secrecy and evasion, her cousins claimed it for some unnamed purpose and began to spend a fair piece of their time in the confines of the shed, diligently pursuing their mysterious enterprise.

They at least had the sense not to attempt to extract any promises from Lenora not to open the door on pain of death or destruction, which would have drawn her out there faster than a hog at feeding time. And it was of course taken for granted that she herself was not in the least curious as to what was going on in that shed.

For she was not. Eudora was not inclined to question the doings of her cousins as long as they appeared to be occupying themselves in some capacity, and as for the strange men who rode up under the cover of darkness and were off again before the sun rose, well, whatever they got up to was their own lookout and no concern of hers.

Though if she had been pressed upon to speculate, she _might _have acknowledged that though the corn crop had been too poor to be of much use to _her_ that did not mean there was no use for it at _all._

But as she was not pressed upon to speculate, she concerned herself solely with the efficient management of a two-room cabin, two cows, two horses, sixteen chickens, and five people. This was not including Hank Ketterfield, who was essentially operating as a hired hand, though for what reimbursement she could not conjecture. He frequently partook of the Miller table, but outside of that she did not consider him to be under her jurisdiction. _Inside_ of that he was hardly under her jurisdiction; Hank Ketterfield's manners were of such high caliber that if she ever got Buford to behave half as well she would consider it a genuine miracle.

For example, when he entered with Bill and Buford, Hank Ketterfield greeted her kindly and went to stand patiently behind his designated chair. He politely ignored the scene that ensued the entrance of Cousin Bill, for whom Lenora had apparently been watching from aloft, like some kind of permanently ruffled bird of prey.

"Cousin Bill!" she shrieked, and came flying recklessly down the ladder that led to the loft she and Eudora shared, "Oh, Cousin Bill! Amos Welty's proposed to marry me and Dora doesn't like him!"

She turned sad, hopeful eyes upward and waited for Cousin Bill to opine upon this calamity.

"Well," said Cousin Bill.

"And Buford's been saying awful things! Just awful! About how we'd have to eat shoes for being so poor, when Amos isn't poor at _all_!"

"Well," Cousin Bill said again, looking uneasily toward the table.

"And he's the kindest-hearted man in the world! And smart as a whip, and a dancer to the manner born. And he has a voice like a songbird, don't he? You heard him sing that time he was serenading me out by the barn and you rode up and stopped and could hardly move for wonder! Don't you remember?"

Buford, in the midst of an unconvincing coughing fit, tried desperately to catch Eudora's eye. She ignored him. She did not find anything humorous about the situation. Love often blinded its victims to the faults of their intended, there was no reason it should not occasionally deafen them as well.

"Oh, you do remember, don't you?"

"Yep," said Cousin Bill.

After a brief moment of shock and dismay that this memory did not inspire Cousin Bill to appropriate heights of rapture, Lenora changed tack. She clasped her hands together plaintively and made a direct petition for support. "Don't you think we'd be terribly happy together?"

"Well," said Cousin Bill, and glanced reluctantly at Eudora.

As soon as it dawned upon her that this hesitation was not in favor of her beloved, Lenora clapped her hands over her mouth and fled the scene just as quickly as she had engendered it. She set quite a bit of store by the opinions of her elder sister and taciturn cousin, so the realization of their mutual disapproval was a solid blow to her dreams of impending matrimony.

"How that girl manages to keep herself in a constant state of botheration is entirely beyond me," said Cousin Buford. "Nora! Come back in here and put some meat on your bones!"

This was Cousin Buford's solution to all manner of emotional distress.

"Leave her be," Eudora ordered, and as the men were hungry, and as Eudora looked weary and grim with her fine dark hair falling out of her bun in wisps around her face, and as there was no reason to wait for Hiram Miller would not return from town until well after nightfall, the four of them sat down to dine.

* * *

><p>The porch, if one could stretch one's imagination enough to define it as such, faced south. There was something like a trail, hoof-made and ill-defined, that wound from the house to the barn and back to the house again, and then off to the south for miles and miles until it merged into the dusty streets of Hickock Hill.<p>

Eudora did not have the time to spare standing around staring off into the distance, really. There were dishes to be washed and socks to be darned and all manner of little useful things she ought to be doing, and yet she stood on the porch with the night breeze winding through the tendrils of her hair and pushing them relentlessly across her cheeks and brow. The dishrag twisted absently between her fingers.

The moon was near full. Three or four days, by her reckoning.

She could hear them moving about in the shed, though they tried to be quiet. Night on the prairie seemed to make sound carry further, somehow. She supposed it must be the breeze, picking up words spoken in secret and bearing them along to deposit indistinguishable remnants in her ears.

And so it was no surprise that she heard him coming around the side of the house in his soft worn boots. She expected to hear Uncle Hiram's horse half a mile before it reached the barn, if he made his way home tonight. He was later than usual. In another hour she would send Bill out after him.

He stopped at the bottom of the step and stayed there. The porch did not offer enough space for two unrelated young people to stand at a respectable distance.

"Miss Eudora," he said quietly.

There was no denying, thought Eudora, that Hank Ketterfield was a handsome man. He had a fine roman nose and bright eyes. Lenora claimed that he looked like Caesar Augustus, though from what point of reference Eudora did not know.

With the elevation of the porch, they were eye to eye.

"It's a fine night," said Eudora.

"It sure is," Hank Ketterfield replied.

And indeed it was.

"Will you put up in the barn tonight, Mr. Ketterfield?"

"Not tonight. Miss Eudora," said Hank Ketterfield, "I would be very honored if you would care to ride out with me some afternoon."

"I am flattered, Mr. Ketterfield, but I must regretfully decline your kind offer."

Hank Ketterfield nodded slightly, as though he had expected as much. But he hadn't gone three steps before he stopped and turned again.

"Miss Eudora, I hope I am not being too forward when I say that Handsome Charley is a rotten lowlife, and I would knock him into a cocked hat if you said the word. But it ain't fair to you or anyone else to behave as though every man around would do what he done if given the chance," he said quietly, looking up in the doorway as she stood backlit by the yellow lantern light within. "There's plenty of men as wouldn't take that chance."

Eudora let the silence settle over them both. But only for a moment, which was no time at all in the prairie darkness. No time at all in the light of the moon. She leaned slightly into the post beside her and balled the rag tightly in her fist.

"If it is all the same to you, Mr. Ketterfield, I will bid you goodnight."

"It ain't, Miss Eudora. But I wish you the same."

She did not watch him trudge softly back toward the barn, but it was impossible not to track his progress by ear. Eudora put her hands up to her arms in defense against the gentle endless summer breeze. The reference to Charley Hansom left her feeling cold and quiet, like an empty house with the wind blown through.

She turned and went back into the cabin, and shut the door firmly behind.

* * *

><p>Ok, yeah, technically i'm not even <em>in <em>the ficathon but, i mean, shoot. HOW COULD I RESIST. And it seems to be cleared with the proper authorities, y'all. And you have my personal guarantee that the fairy tale will eventually be recognizable. Might take a few chapters. But it will come.

Special thanks to the Captain, who bore a holy sockdologer of a prompt-hijacking with such grace and elegance you could of durn near called it a presentation. Why, i was like to think her a genuine Lady, with kidskin gloves n' a little hat with glass cherries on, and what-all.

COULDN'T A DONE IT WITHOUT YA, PARD.


	2. Chapter 2

As I was going over the far-famed Kerry mountains,  
>I met with Captain Farrell as his money he was counting,<br>I first produced me pistol, I then produced me rapier,  
>Saying, "Stand and deliver, for I am the bold deceiver!"<p>

_-Whiskey in the Jar, _Traditional

* * *

><p>It was dark when she woke, too dark for sense, and for a moment she lay perfectly still on the straw mattress and listened to the gentle rhythm of Lenora's breathing. Eudora was not prone to a fitful sleep and the unexpected wakefulness confused her.<p>

The moon was bright. _Too bright for sense_, she thought_,_ and then shook her head at the foolishness. It wasn't yet midnight. Hours and hours before there was any work to be done.

She hated that after all this time he still wormed into her thoughts on no provocation whatsoever, but it did please her that he was no longer her first thought in the morning or the last image in her mind at night. That was progress, and progress slow or quick was a thing to be affirmed.

She could not forget that.

With her mind on progression- slow progression- her thoughts turned naturally to her uncle, who had finally come limping in not two hours ago, having been significantly delayed by a sprained ankle he incurred on the uneven streets of Hickock Hill that afternoon. It was swollen terribly and the ride home had been arduous for him, but nonetheless it looked as though he would be fully recovered in a matter of weeks. But the idea of severely limited mobility, even for a short time, made her suddenly restless and she swung herself abruptly out of bed.

She went to the window and looked out at the empty prairie. It looked so full and strange in the soft light, and beneath her the lone horse and rider seemed both grotesque and yet natural, moving as one through the silence, a thing of the night born and bred.

He had come from the shed, she knew, and now he would go away again, and what was it to her? Only a strange man in the moonlight.

Eudora went back to bed. It was hardly five minutes before she was sound asleep.

* * *

><p>It was still dark when she woke again and the first shout brought her bare feet down hard on the rough wooden floor boards. But then she was still, still and silent as the second and third and fourth whipped through the gentle quiet breeze until it was all a mess of hollering, roaring voices and she was suddenly at the open window, suddenly down the shaking ladder and halfway to the door when Buford strode through and banged it behind him.<p>

The silence was terrible in its completion.

"What is it?" she heard herself whisper as she fumbled to light the lantern.

"What's the ruckus, boy?" Hiram Miller demanded, leaning heavily in the doorway of his bedroom.

"Posse. Coming up hard and fast. Hank said eight of 'em."

"Hank?"

"Rode out to warn us. Bill took Rooster and the two of 'em shinned out."

"You ought to have gone with them," she said immediately, and her cousin stared at her.

"And leave y'all stuck out here without a horse? No thanks." He looked tired and pale but his voice was calm. "Listen, they're gonna take me in, and-"

"On what charges?"

Buford gave her a look. "Don't play the fool, Eudie. It don't suit."

"But what did you do?" Lenora said plaintively from the top rung of the ladder.

"Nothin' to write home about," Buford said and grinned so charmingly that she sat back, reassured.

"Go back to bed, Nora," Hiram said gruffly. "Ain't worth fretting over. Nothin' none of us can do now."

Hiram's face was craggy and grim in the kerosene lamplight, contrasted bleakly against Buford, who stood in the shadows of the loft looking so raw and so young. But his eyes were glistering. They looked at each other for a long moment, father and son, and between them Eudora felt something in her chest growing tighter and colder with every silent second passed.

"Go back to bed, Dora," said Hiram finally, and with that he turned and limped back into the darkness of his room.

Eudora ignored this directive and followed her cousin out onto the porch.

"Leave the light inside," he said, and she did. The posse would find out soon enough that the boys had been warned beforehand, there was no point in alerting them earlier than necessary with a lantern on the porch.

She could not bring herself to ask where Hank and Bill had gone. It occurred to her that as neither of her cousins were fools, they must have had some kind of plan for a contingency of this sort. It was doubtful that Buford would feel inclined to share it with her.

"When they take me in," he said quietly, "don't let Nora put up a fuss. Don't let her come out at all."

No. That would not do at all. "I will see to it."

"You shouldn't come out, neither," he continued.

"What will they do with you?"

"Hard to say at this point, but I'm hoping for prison. Because I wouldn't pay the fine even if I had the money for it, and they'll try and get at the farm somehow."

Something in his voice and the manner of his stillness caused her to wonder as to the specifics of this eventuality. The circuit judge might demand a fine be paid, and they would likely have to sell the land to do it, but to whom she could not guess.

"Who?"

Something in the distance howled, long and lonesome. Buford maintained his silence.

"Buford," the thought that had been prickling at the back of her mind would not leave her and because it was dark and so late, she laid a hand gently upon his elbow and said, "who arranged this?"

"I can't rightly say," he muttered. She could not see his face in the moonlight.

"Buford."

"Guess you might as well hear it from me," he sighed, and turned away from her. "I can't swear on it, but I reckon it's the boys from Snakehead Crick."

He might as well have slapped her for all the good it did. Eudora felt the breath go out of her all at once, pushed her lungs out and filled them again. Her hand found the railing and for a moment she stood leaning as her fingers bit down hard into the wood.

And when she could let go she turned and went back into the house, for there was nowhere else to go, and up the ladder to the loft, for there was nothing else to do.

And when she sat upon the bed Lenora could see from the set of her shoulders that something had gone deeply awry, and lightly drew her fingers down the length of her braided hair.

"Eudora?"

"It's all right," Eudora said blankly, and such a lie she had never told in all her life. The boys from Snakehead Crick. _Charley_.

The tight cold thing that had hardened in her chest caught and tore on the jagged edges of the words she could not say and the sorrow flowed out blood-hot. Eudora sat on the edge of the bed and bit her knuckles to keep from crying out.

She had not been entirely surprised when he had gone outlaw; hurt, certainly, and sad, and lonesome. But not surprised. Charley Hansom had been bound for a life of crime since he was a boy of ten, had flirted with gun-slinging and gambling since he was fifteen. There was no surprise in it when he joined the Snakehead Crick Gang.

She could hear the horses jangling and huffing beneath her window. Rough loud voices called out in the darkness. The posse- if one could call it that, when it came at the behest of a pack of scoundrels- was here for one reason only and that was not so odious as to shock her, for she was not a fool and Buford often said that where the money lay, there the power would be also.

Eudora closed her eyes and thought of Cousin Bill riding hard and fast for the sunrise. He wouldn't go west or north, for that was only deeper into enemy territory. And Mr. Ketterfield- Hank- had a sister in Ava's Creek. A sister who would take him in now that he was on the run from a passel of ruthless blackguards with their fingers in every pie in the county, because he was a good friend to her brothers, because he would rather flout the law than see them starve.

And with that thought, Eudora arose.

Courting Charley Hansom had not been a productive way to spend her time, and mourning him was no more useful. It had been six months since he had thrown her over for a life of debauchery, and she would waste no more time thinking on it. Not another minute, not another breath.

Lenora shifted nervously. "Where are you going?"

"To see about Buford. You stay in here and keep an eye on Uncle Hiram."

"All right," Lenora said softly. She was frightened, and Eudora did not have it in her to provide any comfort worth the hearing. It would be a sin and a shame to say that everything would be all right when it was quite clear to see that it would not.

She dressed quickly and pulled her hair into a simple bun. She left her sister sitting alone in the loft and her uncle lying alone in his room and went out into the open air.

It was such a clear night that she left the lantern inside. She did not need it to make out the long lean shape of Buck Newton, a deputy with a vile reputation of drunkenness and depravity. And there was Pollie Hardin's father off to the left. Ben Crawford was directly in front of Buford, whose arms were restrained behind his back by two men she could not identify.

And in the center of them all, with his back to her, stood George Washington Hornhap.

Eudora set her sights upon him and advanced swiftly. As she did, the more intuitive of the men sensed the changing wind and began to shift and look about. It was Mr. Hardin who saw her first and began to raise a hand in her direction, but just then Ben Crawford's temper overtook his tolerance in regards to Buford's witticisms, and he slammed his fist into Buford's stomach.

The blow doubled him over. It would have flattened him if it hadn't been for the men holding him up by either arm.

Eudora's eyes narrowed. She had been at school with Ben Crawford. He was at least two years her junior, and what he was doing riding with a midnight posse she could not fathom.

"I will not speculate on the manner of company you keep, Ben Crawford," Eudora said icily, by way of greeting, "that has set _your_ standards for behavior in mixed company, but while you are in my presence I will thank you to restrain your baser instincts. I do not care for violence."

"Well, how else am I supposed to make him quit shootin' his mouth off," Ben Crawford grumbled.

She supposed she could see his point.

"You heard the gal, Crawford. Lay off." George Washington Hornhap removed his hat and gave her a smile that was meant to be conciliatory. "Awful sorry for the disturbance, Miss Eudora. But it does appear to be necessary."

"Yes, I see that now," Eudora said blandly. "Good evening, Sheriff. Or good morning, I should say."

"She didn't know nothin' about it," said Cousin Buford. "None of 'em ever had cause to come out here. It was just me."

"I hear tell you had a mite more help than that," Buck Newton drawled, "Where's Jim Clancy, Miller? We searched the barn, and you coulda knocked me over with a feather when we didn't find him burrowed down in the hay like the barn rat he is."

"Reckon you'd know better n' me," said Cousin Buford, "you being more the type to associate with varmints."

Eudora did not come to the defense of James Clancy, whom she judged to be foolhardy beyond measure. She turned her attention again to the Sheriff.

"Be quiet, Buford. Mr. Hornhap, what exactly are the charges against my cousin?"

"Cousins, miss. Both a your cousins and Hank Ketterfield and Jim Clancy beside. We know they was in on it too. Chuck Burney come to me not three hours ago with a snortful of corn liquor he'd bought himself here tonight. And it was indeed young, and strong enough to fell a bull mid-charge, ain't that right, Buford?"

"Never saw much use in doing a thing halfway," Buford said dryly. "Ain't biblical."

"There you have it, Miss Eudora. Your cousins are charged with the making and manufacture of illegal and illicit alcohol, and they're bound to stand trial for it."

"I see," said Eudora, for there was little else to say. It would hardly inspire them to compassion to admit that she had long suspected the boys of running a still in the shed, but had seen no point in interfering with the sole source of income of the Miller homestead.

She stood quite straight and calm, but still waters are known to run deep, and beneath her cool exterior ran a thick current of anger. The thought that came to her then was born of despair, but fury carried it over into action.

"Mr. Hornhap, I am taken by a desire to see the evidence against my cousins," said she.

A man on her left snorted his disapproval. The others were silent as the Sheriff tipped his head slightly backwards and regarded her for a moment.

"Well, that's a fair enough desire, I suppose," his massive shoulders lifted up and fell again. "Fetch that light, Frank."

A lantern was produced, and Buck Newton led the way into the shed. Eudora, due to an excessively sensible childhood, had not entered the structure for nigh on thirteen years and yet she did not find it much different than she remembered. The light threw the shadows up high on the wall and darkened the corners into an utter black. Several pieces of pipe and wood were littered about in the dirt, and she could make out a pot overturned by the nearest wall.

"That there's the still, ma'am."

George Washington Hornhap indicated in the direction of her feet. Eudora inclined her head slightly in an effort to study a broken board.

"I beg your pardon, Sheriff, as I am no expert on the subject, but it looks a good deal like trash to me."

"That's because they busted it up."

She had heard no commotion; she could testify to that. She was grasping at straws now, she knew, but there was little else to grasp at this point and one took what one could get.

"I see," she pursed her lips briefly, "and does that prove necessary in the process of making and manufacturing moonshine?"

"It does if you're lookin' to get away with it, and someone sends word the law's on the trail. Somebody warned 'em afore we got here, Miss Eudora. Why else do you think Bill ain't nowhere to be found?"

"My cousin is in Perchet County, seeing a man about a job. He left this morning. He is not expected back until tomorrow." There was a solid chance that none of them would be so bold as to call her a liar to her face, but nor was there any reason to give them the opportunity. She sallied forth. "Sheriff Hornhap, I must express my confusion as to what you are basing these charges on, other than the word of a drunkard who rode into your office with a bottle of home-made liquor and story about my cousins."

"You're welcome to express all the confusion you can muster, but Buford here's as good as confessed. You heard him yourself a minute ago. Weak liquor ain't biblical, ain't that right, boys?"

Eudora cut in before the chorus could respond.

"Buford has been known to forsake the truth in favor of the first quip that comes to him. Wit may be a man's greatest treasure but it is also, on occasion, his greatest weakness. If you are basing your case against him on _that_, I sincerely doubt it will stand for long in court. Have you found any illicit alcohol on this property?"

Had she any doubt before, the silence would have relieved her of it.

"We ain't had time to do a real thorough search," said the Sheriff, "but we can make time. What do you got to say about that, Miller?"

"Somethin' witty, in a minute or two, no doubt." Buford drawled, with an eye on his cousin. "In the meantime, you're welcome to search all you like."

The search commenced. They went through the shed swiftly and to no avail. The barn was a slightly longer affair, with a good deal of scuffling about through the hay and disconcerting Minerva and Emerdine, the Miller's only cows. Ben Crawford suggested the chicken house, but Eudora denied him entry on the grounds that the chickens would not lay properly if they were disturbed at this hour.

"Shoot, Crawford, I'd rather take on a whole posse than get her riled up over them chickens," said Buford, "which is to say, _were _I in the white lightning business, I'd ruther drink a gallon straight than hide it in that chicken house. Though it does make sense to me that you'd look towards your kin for help."

"Jest you wait, Miller. She ain't gonna be around forever, and whose skirts you gonna hide behind then?"

"Well, there's your ma, your sister, that pretty little Charlotte Harris, I hear she's _real _free with her-"

"Buford," said Eudora, before Ben could lunge for him, "for the love of everything wise and prudent, close your mouth."

Buford began to protest, but a shout from the barn distracted him. It was immediately followed by another, louder, victorious whoop. Eudora turned to Buford and saw that he had closed his eyes.

"_Clancy_," he breathed, and Eudora heard him clear enough but she doubted the others could as they stampeded for the Sheriff. He was in the front of the barn and the lantern was hooked on the door above him, swingly gently in the breeze.

"Well, Miss Eudora," he said, with a smile that was far from conciliatory, "I don't suppose you'd care to explain to us why this here butter churn of yours is full of moonshine whiskey?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong>

OH NO NOW WHAT

no legit i don't know what i'm doing

hahah just kidding kids i always know what i'm doing MY BRAINS IS MADE OF SOLID GOLD

that's why it only takes me five months to write 3000 words

hey this is beginning to seem kind of like a poem

by someone who speaks english bad

and is awesome.

YEAH.


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